Thoughts before reading:
The last Super Special! This feels like a really big milestone... For the most part, I haven't enjoyed them much, but now that I'm almost done, I'm going to miss them. It makes me feel like the project is almost over, and I'm definitely going to miss it when I finish.
The basics:
Abby, Stacey, Kristy, Mal, and Jessi are heading off on their summer trip to London and Paris (all set up in #120). Jessi's extra excited, because her Dance New York group is going to be in London while she's there (of course), but then she starts to have second thoughts about having said no to joining.
Stacey's less thrilled, because her mom is coming along as a chaperone. She also ends up seated right next to Robert on the plane, and Jacqui keeps coming over to flirt with him. (She's hanging all over him in a very low cut shirt... this is very risque stuff for the BSC-verse!) Then her luggage gets lost, and she ends up with the wrong suitcase... and to top all this off, the one she mistakenly gets contains human ashes! Kristy, her roommate when they first arrive, is laughing the whole time. Then, to Stacey's further horror, Kristy offers to let her borrow some of her clothes. Stacey ends up having to wear her mom's clothes. (Too bad Claudia didn't come.)
Stacey ends up getting two new outfits at Harrods to tide her over, and she's greatly cheered up. her mom contacts the man she switched luggage with, and he offers to make arrangements to get Stacey her suitcase the next day. She also learns he's a WW2 veteran, and the ashes belong to his platoon buddy, Dennis. They stormed the beach together at Normandy. Dennis just passed away, and asked him to scatter his ashes in Normandy. Maureen promises to bring him the suitcase in Paris. They don't want to risk it being lost, due to the ashes. Stacey's less than thrilled about all of this, but after visiting the WW2 bunkers in London, she changes her mind.
There's another junior high school on the trip with SMS, Ze-hava Berger Junior High. During an icebreaker exercise with them, Kristy meets a boy her age named Michel. She promptly tells him his name sounds like a girl's, so they don't get off to a good start. Despite this, he keeps pestering Kristy constantly and playing her songs on his harmonica. (Stacey tells her to just kiss him already and put them both out of their misery, haha!)
Kristy also goes to see a cricket match, but she hates it: too boring.
Jessi goes to the Dance New York show, and ends up filling in for someone in the show (to the surprise of no readers).
Mallory apparently has cousins in Europe, the Ortons. She gets to meet them on the trip: there's Gillian, a novelist trying to get published, as well as an economics professor, and her two kids, Brett and Bernard. Mal goes over for dinner one night, and learns some family history too. Gillian does genealogy, and has traced their family tree back to Shakespeare. When she learns they're related, Mal almost faints. (Cue eye roll. Really? Just because Mal wants to be a writer, they make her a descendant of Shakespeare?)
Mal visits Shakespeare's birthplace and grave, and sees Romeo & Juliet performed. While visiting Hall's Croft, where Shakespeare's daughter lived, Mal sees a portrait of her that looks a lot like Gillian.
The London BSC members also visit Victoria. (Abby's disappointed that she doesn't really live in a castle.) She even invites Abby to meet the Queen with her. It turns out that Abby's just Victoria's guest at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, though. Even so, she does have a moment of infamy when she accidently steps on the Prince's toes.
In Paris, Stacey and Maureen meet up with Mr. Anderson together, and bring him his luggage. He tells them stories about WW2, and Stacey ends up asking if she can go to Normandy with him. He agrees, and they also visit the American Cemetery outside Omaha Beach.
Kristy and Michel get lost in the Louvre together. They bicker and torment each other most of the day, eventually agreeing to "pretend" to be friends. Kristy ends up realizing she has a crush on Michel, but she's scared to tell him. During the party on the last night, she kisses him, and they look out her hotel room window at the Eiffel tower together.
Mal misses a bunch of sights in Paris because she's working on her story. (Kind of a theme in these books...)
Back in Stoneybrook, Claudia regrets her decision to stay, because Janine is the head counselor at the playground... so she's basically her boss. Jerry's one also, and he makes a crack about Janine giving Claudia special treatment, causing Janine to start being really hard on her. She gets scolded constantly for goofing off (although in all fairness, she was playing on the swings the first time).
Claudia gets tired of Janine being on her case and ends up snapping at her that she's just jealous because people like her more. Janine apologizes, and says she was accidently taking her problems with Jerry out on Claud. He's been on her case the whole summer, basically doing the same things to her.
Janine finally stands up to Jerry after he overlooks Mary Anne in favor of Cokie.
Dawn fills in for a day at a summer camp for kids with special needs. Susan Felder is there, and she now uses a hug machine. (Remember her from way back? Kristy and the Secret of Susan.)
Timeline:
It's either late June or early July.
Misc. thoughts:
*Jessi says she's never been out of the country in her whole life... uhm, Jessi, you are 11!
*I went to Europe in high school, also on a class trip, and ours cost over $3,000. I've never heard of any middle school offering a Europe trip.
*I've said it before, but I have to mention it again... if Jessi doesn't have any more series books, why not have her join Dance New York? Her storyline in here could be reaching that decision and spending the rest of the summer there. After this book, she never narrates anything else.
*Abby wants to ask the Queen about Elvis, haha. She also thinks he was in the civil war?? This kid doesn't deserve to go to Europe... and she's a great example of why this sort of vacation would be wasted on her age group.
*Dawn's apparently been to France? When? Was this a storyline in the California Diaries?
*Alan Gray's also on the trip, of course. He acts suspicious on purpose, and gets stopped by customs. I bet he wouldn't try this if it was post 2001.
*See?! Bad things always happen to Stacey in Super Specials! It's a weird sort of tradition at this point. I loved her mom's reaction to the luggage swap though... she totally freaked out, and it was a hilarious scene.
*Kristy teasing Stacey about the whole situation was also hilarious. This book had some really good scenes/moments.
*If the playground jobs were so competitive, I wonder how Cokie landed one. Does she have any experience working with kids?
*Mrs. Pike's family is originally from Ireland and England, and her maiden name is Bennett.
*This book had some of the best illustrations of the series.
*Mallory's working on a story called "If Life is a Barrel of Monkeys, I Must Be a Banana". She has writer's block though, because the story is too close to her own life to be funny. However, finding out she's related to Shakespeare gets her writing again.
*Kristy buys a kit to learn how to juggle.
*Robert finally tells Jacqui he's not interested in her (he narrates a chapter).
*Maureen has problems with her co-chaperone, Mr. Dougherty. He keeps constantly wondering off and leaving her to do all the work.
*It was fun to see more of Stacey's mom in here, and their interactions.
*The storyline about Mr. Anderson and his friend's ashes was really well done, and one of the best in the whole series. The chapter where he visited Normandy with Stacey almost made me cry.
*Jerry is a real ass in here, blaming Janine for any problems that arise at camp. She's definitely too good for him.
*Cokie's still after Logan.
*In London, the students also visit the cabinet war rooms, which I'd never heard of before. That was another well done section.
*While most of the students are at Euro-Disney, Kristy and Abby take a tour of the sewers.
*This trip has terrible supervision, despite Maureen's best efforts. Kristy and Michel are alone together in her hotel room, at night, when they kiss.
*Ghostwritten by Peter Lerangis.
Books mentioned:
*The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis
*Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare
My rating:
4 stars. The last and the best. I'm definitely sad now that there's no more of these.
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